I’m grateful my Quaker meeting tries to engage with me about the injustices of our colonial capitalist system and the urgency to seek better ways to engage with our communities as we face deepening environmental, social, economic, and political collapse. This is difficult because it requires a paradigm shift in thinking and being.

“It can be seen that the root of the crisis lies in our behavior, our individual and social behavior – which is a cultural problem. Yet, because each of us lives our lives embedded in our culture, we live and think within the domain we have inherited. If our current ways of thinking are much the basis for our crisis, we must make every effort to think again, and differently. To preserve ourselves and build a better way of life, we must reexamine our culture to rebuild the kind of community where one can lead a more positive, sustainable lifestyle.

Above all, most people want to avoid having their lifestyle and status jeopardized. Understandably then we see that people will align themselves with the commonly-held ideas which also support their views and ambitions – and anything differing from these conceptions suggests some risk to them. Nevertheless, in light of the crisis we are facing, we must look-for and find a way to move forward positively, even under the difficulty of challenging our own deeply rooted ideas.“ 

Making Community by Thomas Grzybowski, Resilience, April 14, 2024